A Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer who was recently recognized for helping find emergency mental health services for people on the streets was charged today with making a violent criminal threat against a woman he lives with in San Clemente. The Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) says it will ask at an arraignment hearing in Santa Ana today that 48-year-old Dale Wayne Ziesmer be held without bail "based on the nature of the criminal threat and the defendant's possible access to firearms."

Early Tuesday morning, the woman involved in a domestic relationship with Ziesmer told another LAPD officer that the San Clemente resident made a threat against her that made her fear for her life, reads an OCDA arraignment statement.

The officer who took the complaint told authorities within the department, and when Ziesmer arrived at work that day he was "disarmed," according to the OCDA.

However, because the incident happened in San Clemente, it is being investigated by the Orange County Sheriff's Department. As the probe continues, Ziesmer is currently charged with one felony count of criminal threats that could fetch up to three years in state prison with a conviction.

In May, Ziesmer was honored by San Fernando Valley mental health providers for his "dedicated support and assistance" responding to those " in need of emergency mental health services," reports the LAPD blog.

Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before "graduating" to OC Weekly in 1995 as the paper's first calendar editor. He has contributed as a freelance editor and writer to several publications and been the subject of or featured in several reports online, in print and on the radio and television. One of countless times he returned to his Costa Mesa, CA, home with a bounty of awards from a journalism competition, his wife told him to take out the trash.